


I'm the Bomb like tick, tick

by InsidiousIntent



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies), Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alex and Ilsa - a budding friendship, Alex is always prepared for a fight, Gen, Slight hint of michael/alex, mentions of Kyle, mentions of Michael Guerin - Freeform, this is kind of handwavey with time progression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 16:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20230960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsidiousIntent/pseuds/InsidiousIntent
Summary: They were going to get shot before Alex could do something to escape this random torture dungeon. Alex seriously needed better friends.





	I'm the Bomb like tick, tick

**Author's Note:**

> This for the Cosmic Love Exchange! For [daffietjuh](https://daffietjuh.tumblr.com/) who asked for a happy, confident, bamf Alex. Hope you like it!
> 
> A big shoutout to my friend, writing guardian, and overall ray of sunshine [estel_willow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow/pseuds/estel_willow) who continues to indulge all my insanity and still loves me :) 
> 
> There is a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5mbnpxcPOnN14D3W9cWqkS?si=ypQo8LY1Rq2WWnkAVgzcLA) that goes with this fic. Have a listen!

Alex Manes was going to die in a sewer. 

He didn’t quite remember the sequence of events that led up to him being tied to a chair in some dirty sewer under the main city of Paris, but he remembered all the important details. Almost all of them involved being friends with William Brandt. Being trained and mentored by Brandt meant a special kind of torture, where all the op rewards came after ridiculous levels of risk sometimes only seen in movies. 

But Alex’s brain had clearly blocked out the troubles that constantly surrounded Will, and now it’s coming to bite him in the ass. He tried to move his body and find some wiggle room anywhere in the ties that bound his arms and legs to the chair, and he could feel Will trying to do something similar right behind him. 

“I should have erased your number from my phone, Brandt. I can’t believe you pulled me right back into your shit.” Alex’s whisper was more of an angry hiss. 

Will was at least a little apologetic, “listen, man, I promise I didn’t know this was going to be anything more than a milk run! I just thought we could catch up, I could steal some financial data to cripple a potential terrorist organization, and a good time would be had by all. How was I supposed to know the data I stole wasn’t financial but a nuclear weapon?” 

“If we get out of here alive, I promise I’m going to kill you, Will. I know how to do it right, you taught me after all.” 

All Alex got was a shrug, so he redirected his focus back to the task at hand. He flicked his glance to his surroundings, noting the closed off credenza in the back and the stains of dried blood around the corners. The laptop Will stole was propped open and waiting for a login on a rickety table in the far end. Alex was definitely going to die here and he wasn’t even twenty-five yet. 

“Almost there man!” Brandt whispered and Alex hoped this meant he got the cuffs off of him but Will never really got around to learning how to get out of cuffs no matter how many times they worked on it, and Alex resigned himself to being the brains of the operation yet again. 

Before Alex could ask what Will was actually doing, a large man dressed in cheap clothes but fancy shoes walked into the room. With him was a case Alex figured held torture weapons or something to make them talk. He wasn’t too afraid of the torture bit, but explaining this colossal fuckup to his CO was going to be a doozy. 

Will didn’t waste a single second before taunting the guy into a bantering conversation that simultaneously gave Alex a headache and made him want to buy Will a beer to celebrate his brashness. They were going to get shot before Alex could do something to escape this random torture dungeon. Alex seriously needed better friends. 

The cuffs came off with a little more effort but before Alex could do any more work towards escaping, a woman came in and shot the amateur torture star. Alex had his gun out and aimed at the woman before she turned towards them. 

“I see the Americans continue to need help with the easiest things,” she said in lieu of an introduction. 

“Thank you, but I think we got this. You can get moving now,” Alex replied a little irritated, as Will grabbed the laptop and turned his own gun towards the woman. She didn’t seem phased with the two to one guns ratio, and Alex did not like the way she was smirking at both of them like she was in on a secret they weren’t. 

“Actually, I can take it from here, gentlemen. Why don’t you hand the laptop over and you can both be on your way,” she continued to show off that infuriating smirk, and Alex was starting to get a really bad feeling. 

“Who are you?” he asked, as he inched closer to where Will was standing with the laptop. Will thankfully got with the program fast enough and started walking closer as well. 

“I think, Captain Alexander Manes of the 480th ISR Squadron, the more important question is what exactly are you doing with an operative of the IMF? I didn’t think air force grunts like you enjoyed the company of reckless idiots like these,” the woman said pointing at Will, who made a rude noise of disagreement, still nonchalant as Alex and Will stared her down. Alex had had enough of this bullshit, and he grabbed the laptop from Will before he did something stupid like throwing it at their unwelcome guest. 

“Seriously who  _ are  _ you? And why should we care?” Alex asked again, because this was going to bother him for a while. Not a lot of people knew his identity and full real rank, and this woman has had the upper hand since she entered. 

She just sighed and threw something at Alex that made the laptop start to smolder. Alex dropped it just as Will shot at the woman. The woman clearly was expecting this move since she ducked and moved out of the way, kicking Will’s knees out from under him and knocking him out while Alex made a run with the laptop. She was fast, but Alex had decades of evasive maneuvers training, so he was up and spinning before her kick even connected. He caught the kicks and tried to throw her down, but she flipped over and came very close to slamming his hand on the floor. 

Alex put all his weight behind a punch to the sternum that had the woman doubling over before she jackknifed and kicked him into a wall. He crumpled to the floor and the laptop went flying, but before he could catch a breath and get to the laptop, a sharp punch to the head knocked all the lights out for him. 

Alex came to about a minute later, to see Will brushing off the beat down and getting up himself. 

“Well that was fucking embarrassing,” Will grumbled and Alex couldn’t help but agree. Being bested by an unknown assailant was going to make him look like an idiot, even more so when his CO found out that the assailant was clearly British intelligence. 

“I’m never going to any fucking brunch with you, Brandt, you suck at this. Next time, only Jane is invited to our hang out.” Alex was going to bitch about this till the end of time. He hated feeling stupid, feeling outmatched physically and mentally. This was going to sting for a while. 

“Yeah yeah, no need to whine. I’m the one who is going to be stuck on desk duty for a month after this disaster. I didn’t even get a copy of the data I spent so much time stealing,” Will moaned and extended a hand to pick up Alex. 

“Please dude, only you would be that stupid. Good thing you have smart friends like me to save your dumb ass.” 

Will stared as Alex smirked and produced the encrypted USB drive. 

“I fucking love you, Manes.”

“Yeah yeah, you’re still buying the next eighteen rounds.”

___

_ Apres _

Alex stared at the remnants of the empty warehouse that stored the last remaining shreds of Project Shephard and its various offshoots. The number of terrorist organizations conned into funding Jesse Manes’ insane xenophobic crusade against aliens was finally coming to an end. He was free, and Michael, Isobel, and Max were finally free, and Alex could finally look to moving forward. 

He had the last remaining task of destroying the biochemical information he had recovered from the warehouse that he was hoping he could decipher and track down to the source. He couldn’t just let it burn without knowing what terrorist organization out there had the capacity of weaponizing basic ingredients and owned the means of creating a pandemic. 

He had burned through most of his contacts and was losing hope when he remembered someone who could help. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number memorized an eon ago. 

“Go for Benji,” the voice on the other end supplied. 

“Hey Benji, long time no talk.”

“ _ Alex Manes?  _ I thought you died, because that would be the only thing keeping you from hanging out with us in the last three years.” Benji sounded annoyed and incredulous and Alex definitely missed the group of friends he had made and come to rely on during his time away from Roswell. He did secretly hope Ethan had retired permanently because that guy was nuts with a capital N. 

“I know and I’m sorry Benji, I was back in Roswell for a project for The Powers That Be, but I need you to go cryptic now.” 

A brief pause in response is all he got before Benji was back, “Ok go.” 

“I discovered a biological weapon for a water-based pandemic. It seems to have both a biochemical component and an explosive component.”

“ _ Holy shit _ , ok ok. Any traces on the original source or the locations to which it was shared?” 

“I can’t break down a source or trace all the locations but I was able to discover two things - this came out from London, and it had a single name. The Syndicate.” 

“ _ Fuck,  _ Alex.”

“This is bad, isn’t it Benji?”

“More like catastrophic. You need to get on a plane to Langley right now. I’m sending you details of the next flight out from Holloman and you need to bring the data. You will be briefed in person.”

“See you soon, Benji.”

Alex landed in Langley with the familiar sense of urgency and irritation that always came with working with the IMF. He hoped he could dump this problem on someone else’s head and go back to Roswell soon, he didn’t get a chance to do anything more than text Kyle about needing to be away for a couple of days, and he hated the possibility of Michael thinking he was gone again. 

The headquarters of IMF were almost the same, and Will and Benji’s grinning faces were like splashes of water on his parched soul. He missed his friends, and the easy camaraderie that came from working with people who understood him. He entered the conference room with a matching grin and gave both men an easy hug. 

“You miss me Brandt?” 

“Hardly,” Will scoffed but the grin never left his face. “Your ugly mug ain’t nothing to miss, Manes.”

The sound of heels on the floor made Alex turn around and come face to face with someone he didn’t think he’d ever see ever again, let alone in the hallowed halls of the IMF. 

The woman from Paris. 

“Captain Manes, how delightful to see you again. It’s been a while,” she says in the same affable tone with that same slight smirk on her face, one that Alex will not forget in a hurry. But this time, he is not as lost. 

“It’s good to see you again, I hope you aren’t planning on smashing my head against the wall.” 

“Only if you promise not to shoot me.”

“You got yourself a deal, _Agent Ilsa Faust_,” Alex responded with a smirk of his own. 

This was going to be fun. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come cry about all things malex with me on [Tumblr](https://insidious-intent.tumblr.com/)


End file.
